Feb 15 (Reuters) - Five facts about the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, one of whose leaders was killed in an explosion in the Gaza Strip on Friday.

* Islamic Jihad is sworn to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state spanning what was pre-1948 British Mandate Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. * The group was founded by Fathi Shiqaqi and Abdel-Aziz Odeh, Palestinians who were disillusioned with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Shiqaqi was assassinated in 1995 in Malta, apparently by Israeli agents.

* The group began attacks against Israelis in the early 1980s with a series of stabbings of civilians and shootings at army bases.

* Islamic Jihad, along with militants from the larger Islamist faction Hamas, began a suicide bombing campaign against Israelis in 1994 after a Jewish settler killed 29 Palestinians in a Hebron mosque. A few months earlier, Arafat's mainstream PLO Fatah leadership had reached an interim peace deal with Israel.

* Since 2005, when the group agreed to a de facto truce with Israel, it has been involved in scattered attacks and rocket firing from Gaza at Israel, which has continued to target the group. Last August Israeli undercover forces killed Ala Abu Srour, the group's local leader in the West Bank city of Jenin. (Writing by Jerusalem bureau)

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